Political power in Peru is diffused among many contenders:
the military, charismatic personalities, economic groups,
labor unions, and political parties. The literature on Peru
reflects this state of affairs and deals with parties only
in terms of their activities in the political arena and
their relations with the aforementioned groups. Peruvian
party literature does exist mainly because Peru is the home
of the Apristas (373) and their leader Haya de la Torre, one
of the rare original political theorists of Latin America.
In Peruvian politics up through 1968 one tended to be either
pro-APRA of anti-APRA, and this cleavage carries over into
the scholarly literature. Most writings about parties in
Peru seem dedicated either to glorifying APRA or defaming
it. Until the ascendancy of the Popular Action Party (379)
in the late 1950's, parties were dealt with primarily in
terms of their relations with the Apristas.

The apparent abundance
of material on Peru is deceptive for most of it is redundant
or contradictory. After a while one's knowledge is never
complemented, only repeated or disputed. In the hope of
correcting this deficiency, the bibliographic search was
extended to Spanish language sources. Some Spanish material
was included, but most of what was available was discarded
as redundant or otherwise unsuitable.

Material
Processed Into ICPP Information Files

The bibliographic
search eventually produced 972 pages of acceptable material
from 75 documents. The first table presents a description of
the major indexing categories and their frequency of use.
The distribution of these codes is indicative of the focus
of the available literature, but a few explanations are
called for.

The 7-- codes, used
for information about the "social environment," are crucial
to the understanding of the Peruvian party system. The 750
code (activities of the military) is used 113 times and
reflects the importance of the military in Peru. The army's
thirty-year feud with the Aprista party has resulted in more
than one military coup and is credited with preventing that
party from coming to power and implementing its reform
program. For six years of our time period, 1950-56, General
Odría with the support of the military, effectively
suppressed all political party activity.

The frequent usage of
code 720 (social) resulted from the heavy emphasis the
literature placed on the importance of the social divisions
in Peru. Fully 60% of the population, which is of Indian
extraction, is disfranchised by a literacy requirement and
exists by subsistence agriculture. The "forty families" of
the coastal cities, on the other hand, have more political
power than most of the parties.

Scholarly interest in
Peru does not extend to the structure of political parties.
Such tantalizing statements as, "The Apristas are the best
organized party in South America" are never developed. One
has to piece together, as best one can, off-hand references
to national conventions, election committees, and auxiliary
organizations. Party activities stimulate some interest, but
attention is primarily focused on '1campaign activities"
(219) and "demonstrations" (270). Inciting riots and
assassinations appears to be a more important activity in
the life of the party than "raising funds" (260) and
"influencing government policy" (230).

This brings up the
importance of the political environment" (6-- codes) as
related to the functioning of party activity in Peru. Apathy
(generally tagged with code 630) and a predisposition to
violence (reflected in the intensive use of code 640)
present the development of a party system with difficult if
not insurmountable obstacles. The high frequency of indexing
code 660 (the executive) results, strangely enough, from the
fact that at no time during our time period was the
executive in the hands of any ICPP defined political party.
From 1950-1956 General Odría ruled as a military
dictator; and in 1956 President Prado, a candidate of the
M.D.P (Movement Democratico Prado), was elected with the
support of the illegal Aprista Party. Prado's Prime Minister
Pedro Beltran was a very influential political figure with
no recognized party affiliation. The activities of these
men, which were considerable, are identified in the 660
code.

Richard Patch1's
American University Field Staff Reports from Peru
offered excellent descriptions of "electoral activities"
(210) and backgrounds of "candidates" (340). Most of the
material included on auxiliary organizations (460) reflects
Patch's studies of the student elections and the parties'
relations to them.

More than 50 percent
of the party index codes are for the Apristas (373)
reflecting particularly the work of Harry Kantor and
Fredrick Pike, who have devoted considerable attention to
the programs and ideology of this party. In addition,
because the Apristas dominate the labor movement and until
recently the student federations, any discussions involving
these groups automatically relate to the activities of the
Apristas. Party code 379 did yeoman duty in covering
material about the small but persistent Communist Party, the
Movement Democratic Prado, the small personalistic parties
of the right, and most important of all--Action Popular--the
party of Fernando Belaunde Terry, who secured the Presidency
in 1963. Almost every reference to the Union National
Odrista (371) discusses Odría in some capacity. The
less frequently used code 372 of the small but growing
Christian Democratic Party is apt to be associated with more
useful information than the references to the
U.N.O.

Some
Observations on the State of the
Literature

The glaring
deficiencies and inequities in the processed material appear
to be the result of two reinforcing factors; first, Peruvian
parties do not command the center of the political stage,
and secondly, there has been so little interest in them that
no one seems stimulated to examine their workings in
detail.

The more glamorous and
exciting aspects of the party system--campaigns, candidates,
revolutionary platforms, sabotage--receive attention while
the more mundane, less dramatic details--membership figures
and requirements, local and regional organizations, party
financing, party discipline--are virtually
ignored.

The Peruvian political
environment has produced political theoreticians of
considerable merit such as Haya de la Torre; but Peruvian
parties certainly have not inspired theoretical tracts about
themselves. Much of the literature is good solid journalism;
some of the literature is nothing but propaganda. Perhaps if
more authors would have approached the study of Peru's
politics with hypotheses about parties and their operations,
the literature would have investigated their power
structures and activities in a more systematic and detailed
fashion.

The data quality
analysis table provides some valuable insights into 71 of
the 75 documents which were evaluated on the data quality
variables. There are virtually no books on Peru's party
system. Instead one must rely on journal articles, which are
often short and tend to focus on political events rather
than parties. The predominance of journal articles also
tends to add to the overabundance of 6-- and 7-- codes
because the articles generally gave a brief description of
the geographic, social, economic, and political background
of Peru.

On the positive side,
a few authors have done much valuable and useful research on
Peru although their major focus has not been on political
parties. James Payne, whose primary interest is labor unions
in Peru, deals with parties in terms of their relations to
the unions. He has also conducted extensive interviews and
surveys. Anthropologist Richard Patch has spent many years
in Peru, and presents a very knowledgeable discussion of
ethnic support for the various parties. Nearly all those who
write extensively on Peru have competency in the Spanish
language and have spent some time in the country.